


i’m big enough to break down the door

by tnevmucric



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Akechi Goro Has A Palace, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, M/M, past deaths, set before shidos palace, unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23559001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: “he’ll stay with me”, ren says in the after. “i can take care of him.”goro akechi is sitting on his stiff bed, holding a toy ray-gun in his hand and shivering where the chill of rain hasn’t left his coat. he hasn’t said a word since he arrived.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 196
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	i’m big enough to break down the door

There was something so sobering about the silence Leblanc’s attic held that night.

If Ren closed his eyes, he could almost imagine it was any other night and he was dozing off to some muted game-show, waiting for Morgana to yowl at him to go to sleep.

Morgana is quiet, and the aftermath of confronting Goro Akechi’s heart was as messy and as furious as imagined—and yet Goro has never been so simple as he is now.

He would later be disgusted to find out how his father’s palace mirrored his own; masks upon masks had twisted into their own convoluted masquerade—a parade of anonymity and secrecy, respectable faces hiding desires of monstrous flavour. He would be disgusted at his ambivalence with morality, each of his actions so emotionally driven that this negligence of true justice surpassed his old beliefs. He would hate most of all the clothes: the vain reflection of his attempt to slide in to respected ranks. Elsewhere, deeper within his heart but so close to the bubbling surface, black metal remained tense. Ren had only seen belts upon belts and a visor like stained glass... he thought the belts afforded some clue to Goro’s identity, misery pouring pain and anger into every warm place Robin Hood had painted gold.

“He’ll stay with me”, Ren says in the after. “I can take care of him.”

Goro Akechi is sitting on his stiff bed, holding a toy ray-gun in his hand and shivering where the chill of rain hasn’t left his coat. He hasn’t said a word since he arrived.

“Call us if you need anything”, Haru does say.

“Send us his address”, Ann adds, “me and Ryuji will stop by tomorrow to pick up some of his things.”

“I’ll go home with Futaba”, Morgana decides.

“We’ll meet in the afternoon”, Makoto looks to Yusuke. “Will you be alright making it here in time?”

“It should be fine.”

Ren doesn’t sit when they leave. There’s a stack of clothes by Goro’s side that he thought might fit him best but the detective hasn’t even looked at them. He weighs the gun in his hands—Ren remembers the feel of it pressed against his side as they ran from the collapsing theatre. The lights had burned but the fire had burned brighter, velvet curtains alight along the walls.

The gun had been a grounding point. The gun had made him run faster.

“Do you want to talk?

“What is there to talk about?” It was jarring to hear Goro’s voice stripped bare, so plain and unassuming where he was once sharply cordial. He tilts the gun again. “My mother bought me this. I told her I wanted to be a hero.”

“I’m sorry.”

Goro looks up briefly. He isn’t mad or angry, but there’s no acceptance there either. He just is.

“I don’t deserve your sympathy after what I’ve done”, he sets the gun down beside him and returns his hands to his lap, his eyes catching on the clothes. “I know better than to fight you on it, though. Thank you for doing as I asked.” Ren forces himself to sit at the desk chair—close but not too close, enough to see but not touch.

“Let me preposition you.” Goro’s fingers drum against his leg.

“I already know what you’re going to ask. Although my heart has been changed, I’m unsure of how I would react if I had to face him.” He pulls the toy back into his lap, holding onto it as if to reaffirm his words. “I know what I want to do to him, what I planned, but it seems my morals have grown in the way. I imagine if I tried hard enough, I could break through again.” The yellowing of the gun creaks under his grip. “You wouldn’t let me, though, would you? You won’t let anyone die.”

“Not if I can help it.” Goro examines him shamelessly, stopping at his collar and lingering by his hands—Ren feels himself twitch under the speculation. He feels himself loosen in the quiet, under the bittersweet presence of his friend—his _friend_.

There’s love in Ren’s body, and he wonders if Goro has figured it out.

The gun is set aside again as Goro speaks.

“How interesting it would be to see your life as it was from the beginning. It’s a wonder you are who you are today—in any other circumstance, I’d be almost sure you’d end up like me.”

Ren comes to a concise conclusion. Goro Akechi knows everything about him whether he likes it or not, and Goro Akechi knows everything about him whether he _knows_ that or not. “I chose not to be”, Ren replies truthfully. “Just like you chose to ask us to steal your heart.”

“Sometimes it feels like I’ve never had any choice”, he admits, “that I’ve been stuck on this predestined path my whole life.” He pulls at his fingers, gloveless and tired. “What would the others think if I joined them for this infiltration?”, he lifts his head. “Surely it would cause unnecessary tension.”

“They’d accept you.”

Ren wasn’t ready to get used to the silence again. Tokyo was meant to be unapologetic and loud, Yongen even prone to motorbikes at night and the lively reputation of the bar down the alley. Goro stands and pulls the clothes up with him: a hoodie, socks, loose shorts—unimportant things.

(A hair-tie, in case he got hot).

“I think you stole my heart some time ago”, Goro doesn’t meet his eyes. “Is there somewhere I can get changed? I’d much prefer to be out of this suit.”

“Yeah.” Ren’s mouth is too wet, he makes a strange sound when he swallows. He’s scared of the hope threatening to grow sturdy in his chest. “The bathroom has a lock.”

“What happens when you die?”, Morgana asks when he comes home the next morning. Ren thinks of his answers and all answers he could say as Goro tosses in his sleep. His hair looks greasy, and whatever makeup he’d been wearing has left a stain on the pillowcase. The rain almost sounds like an ocean outside.

“You start over”, he replies.

* * *

It’s a new day when Goro Akechi is sitting at one Leblanc’s tables. On the T.V., a documentary about the sea plays and the tide crashes softly. There is no sound but the water and the narrator’s whisper as a fish navigates away from its predator. Outside of Leblanc, the city is just as eerie.

“The first time I went there”, Goro explains to the group, drawing his gloved finger along a well-drawn map, “the ship was docked, only in preparatory stages to set sail. The city was fully functioning as well, however the inhabitants were faceless. I’ve since been there at least once a month, watching the palace grow.”

Later, Goro will whisper to Ren behind shaking hands that he’d walked down the jetty afraid. The environment didn’t abide to any law, and his clothes hadn’t even picked up the shift in each step he took. The world was still and feather-light, at its greatest tipping point where it was ready for the swoop and soar. It had been the first, and only time since now, that he questioned what to do. _Children aren’t meant to make big decisions_ , he’d mutter. _And you can’t force them to be adults, I mean, look at me._

“As the city drowned, people drowned in it. Since then it’s just been on an aimless course—rather, it’s been on the same course since the beginning. The inside of the ship has become more and more complex over time but hasn’t changed since earlier this year.” The group around him is quiet, the information digesting slowly through the tension. “Shido Masayoshi sees men as nothing more than meat.” Goro is good at pretending, but the detached way he says this screams of the unintelligent, juvenile kind of pain we feel when we are rejected: the endangered quality to him that will always persist.“He doesn’t care who you are, what last name you have, you are in his way just by existing.” Goro’s eyes flicker. “And if he hasn’t had you killed already, you end up wishing he had.”

That night, Ren pretends not to look as Goro slides into the water beside him.

“I am hopeless”, he says. His skin is flushed and warm, and he complains that the steam from the communal baths irritates the dryness of his lips. He feels alone in the same way people feel alone when all they can do is think about the past. _For a hard second in there_ , he tells Ren, _I realised that a part of me just wanted to die_. And so Goro sank back into the bath and pretended he was dead.

Ren sits him up after a minute an a half to continue washing his hair.

* * *

It takes a long time for Goro to look his way, stretched out on the park grass with a hand on his stomach and one limp to the ground. It’s slow, like he’d known Ren was there since he decided to even come. Like despite the trail that all possible futures left, he’d made a spot for Ren right beside him on that early Wednesday.

He blinked at Ren. Ren blocked the sun. Ren wondered how he looked, standing there. If he was a reminder of actions preferred to be forgotten. Goro looked so inviting with the cold biting his cheeks and the sun lightening his eyes, and Ren could feel himself getting flustered. He tossed the paper bag he was holding to Goro’s chest and was gifted with a bemused smile.

“Honey eclairs from Haru, she thought you’d like them.” Goro peers into the bag before setting it aside.

“I’m not actually a fan of anything sweet”, he confesses. “I always make myself sick when I eat desserts.”

“I’ll tell her you liked them anyway.”

“Thank you.” He pats the spot beside him. “Come on.”

Ren has a weakness to boys with bad haircuts and pretty lips. The grass tickles his ears and he tries to even out his breathing when their shoulders bump, tries to think of the dampness of the ground and the grandness of the sky instead of his heart lodging itself in his throat—but he’s so aware of Goro next to him, sun-browned and sleepy, his hair tangled with the grass and looking every bit unlike the grey and tired teenager who, while only standing still, would sway like there was no fight left in him.

“You found me”, Goro says. “You always find me. How do you do that?”

“Goro senses”, Ren gets caught in the way their elbows lap over each other. “Universal coincidence. Fate.”

“It does seem that way.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Not when I need you, it doesn’t—but I suppose every other time it does.” They watch the birds and clouds above them for a while. It is a bright day, despite the cold, and the life of the park promises favourable memories.

“I’ve tried in many ways to be free”, Goro continues hesitantly, “but it’s been such a long time since anything so concrete... I was convinced Shido’s death would lead to that freedom. I might still be. I can barely a remember a time where I wasn’t just outside of myself. Other.”

“But you can remember a time?” Goro looks at him with some surprise.

“Yes”, he replies. “It hurts to think about.”

“It hurts because it’s real”, Ren tells him. “Keep thinking about it. Don’t stop even when you want to.”

Ren wants to touch his cheek. Ren wants to tangle his fingers in Goro’s hair. Ren can’t breathe.

“Explain to me in a way I can’t deny”, Goro says softly, “why you’ve all accepted me. I don’t know that I’ll go through with your plan, and neither do you—why take the chance?”

Ren doesn’t have an answer. This seems to be enough for Goro, who pulls the slightest bit away and faces the sky again, closing his eyes.

“Wake me in half an hour.”

Ren walks them home later as the rain takes its toll on Tokyo.

* * *

“It’s not unusual to hear birdcalls around 2 AM”, Goro says through a mouthful of hard candy Ann had gifted him when asked why he was still awake. “I like to listen to them sometimes when I can’t sleep. It’s more likely to do with guarding territory, like when the dogs start howling around midnight. There’s a strange musicality to both that make you to realise how late you’ve actually stayed up.” Goro stops himself, brings his thumb to his mouth and traces it there before deciding to chew on an already messy cuticle. “If I don’t have work, I leave for school at 5:50 when it’s still dark—and in winter it’s always darker.”

“Why’s that?”

“During winter the tilt of the Earth makes—“

“No”, Ren sits up slightly, his ear pushing uncomfortably against the arm rest. “I mean why do you leave so early?” Goro shrugs, and it might be the closest to embarrassment he can get.

“I’m always afraid of being late.”

Ren doesn’t ask. He leans up from his spot on the sofa and carefully dislodges a sleeping Morgana off his feet. Goro glances at him as he stands and makes his way over to the bed, jumping the mattress slightly as he collapses cross-legged beside Goro, pulling a grape flavoured candy out of the bag Ann bought and popping it in his mouth.

“What are you doing?”, Goro asks tiredly.

“We’re gonna wait for the birds and the dogs”, Ren explains, “but after that we’re going to sleep. I’ll make us breakfast in the morning—Sojiro’s shut for the next few days.”

Goro falls asleep slumped against Ren’s shoulder.

* * *

Ren knows there are unforgivable things in the world. He knows, with a little more hesitancy and a lot more hypocrisy, that everyone deserves a second chance. 

Morgana’s asleep in the linen cupboard when Goro trails down Leblanc’s stairs in pyjamas that have surely seen better days. He sits in his usual seat, and for a moment life is as it was a few months ago.

“It’s midnight”, Goro says, and Ren sets on making him a cup of decaf.

The unfortunate thing about unforgivable things, and of second chances and of the tender, delicate static T.V. that Goro glances at before turning off, is the haunting. The recipe for disaster these things leave simmering, bubbling, boiling over... 

He fucks up with the coffee filter, rips it. He starts again.

“Tell me about your mother.”

Ren wonders if Goro Akechi can read his mind.

Overtime, pouring coffee became an exercise in stopping, just pausing himself for a moment and watching as his hand slowly tilts the boiling waterover the coffee grounds. He spills it now, fumbling with the handle. The coffee will taste weak—he can already hear Sojiro berating him for it. He doesn’t bother starting over again.

“I look more like my dad than I look like her”, Ren tells Goro. “She’s... sort of tall. Her hairs almost the same colour as yours but her eyes are blue. She studied to be a nurse.”

He used to colour in the diagrams in her books—blue lungs, a red and pink pancreas, a green heart. She’d smother him from behind, kisses loud in his ears and laugh bright. It hurt to think about.

“Do you love her?”

“Yeah. More than anything.”

The fern in the corner of Leblanc is dying, Ren can smell it. He can feel Goro watching him has he pours the coffee in a clean mug.

“How did she feel after your probation was decided?”, he asks carefully. Ren sets the coffee in front of him and stays there, wonders how mad Sojiro might get if he finds out Ren’s been chipping at the varnish on the counter again.

“She died a long time ago”, Ren says— _purple_ , purple for each bone in the hands. Goro’s hand is a little clammy when it folds over his own, his grip half-curled and fiddling, unsure of how welcome the touch is.

“I’m sorry, If I’d known—”

“It’s fine. Like I said, it was a long time ago.”

“She was your mother”, Goro insists. “Time doesn’t just heal something like that.”

Ren gives him a shy smile. “Can’t you just let me believe everything’s fine for 20 minutes?” Goro closes his free hand around the both of theirs and squeezes.

“Everything is fine.”

He is a very good liar, and his voice tonight is perfectly pitched for pain: somehow distant and present simultaneously.

“She was murdered when I was 13”, Ren tells him. “I was coming home from school and my dad pushed me straight out of the house. He kept pushing me until we were out on the street—by then, the cops arrived. I never got to see her body.”

“Was the perpetrator ever—“

“No. No, he wasn’t.”

His dad’s hand was wet on the back of his neck—wet and soapy, like he’d just finished washing the dishes.

“Ren, you’re crying.” Ren pulls his hands away to wipe at his wet cheeks; it felt like touching someone else’s face, wiping someone else’s misery away.

“Sorry, give me a minute.”

Goro stays as he braids his fingers behind his head and slouches over the counter, the hollow sound of his heart pounding in his ears. Eventually, he starts to speak. He tells Ren thingsabout their first meeting, about spotting him every day at the station and then spotting him later those days in the strangest of places, with the strangest of friends. He tells Ren things like how his glasses are useless if they are pointless, and how he needs to invest in a comb. He tells Ren how it felt every time they ran into each other, and how it felt like something astonishing, and how, _knowing you, I felt my life could be worth something._

“How did you know I was alive when you came to ask us to take your heart?”, Ren asks him later, when his bed is taken and he has to pretend the sofa isn’t just a mess of hard cushioning and springs.

“I didnt.”

“How’d you know I was thinking about her?”, Ren continues. “My mom.”

“Before you snuck away, you said a woman’s name in your sleep”, Goro replies, blinking at him through the dark. “It was a guess, really.”

* * *

Goro, Ren suspects, chooses to be delicate in the way people do when they don’t know how to initiate honesty. His voice is a soft, quiet voice, buzzing with the kind of excitement that only children know, and without even trying Goro is as genuine as Ren has ever seen him—Kichijoji bathes him in warm violets and gold.

“I used to come here all the time”, Goro babbles, babbles. Their fingers are tangled together in some imitation of companionship but Goro’s steps are longer and quicker—Ren finds he likes being dragged along. “Two or three times a week, at least. I’d find myself quite restless late at night, and since Leblanc wasn’t open I’d come here. I think you’ll like it.” 

Made up of dark timbers and yellow lighting, there is a lazy enchantment about the jazz club. There’s a small audience gathered in front of the dim stage, but Goro sits them at a table in the corner. The woman at the bar catches Goro’s eye and sends him a wave; he smiles at he cheerily and shakes his head when she gestures to the drinks. Ren wants to hold his hand again but before he can even begin toy with the idea, a man dressed in baggy jeans and an untucked shirt drags his cello on stage with all the grace of a gardener. Someone in the crowd let’s out a little cheer, and the man slumps to his stool, props the cello between his legs, and begins.

It’s a rambunctious sound, fun and swerving music that dictates journey. The man plucks at the strings with his fingers rather than a bow, and he it’s as if he sets the crowd alight with joy. Goro buzzes in his seat, his hands tight in his lap to contain the feeling.

“Don’t you love it?”, he blurts, wide eyed and flushed, suddenly staring at Ren. Ren wants to wake up and start the day over again, wants to do the stupid things that only kids do with him, he wants to take Goro for ice cream, wants to teach him the annoying hand-games where you have to count your claps and remember the rhymes, where you have to have at least one other friend if you want to play at all.

Ren smiles as wide as he can without even thinking it and laughs. His cheeks ache.

“I love it”, he says, and Goro laughs with him.

* * *

“I own every Wham! and George Michael album ever”, Goro confesses as the two of them lay side by side on the bed, their heads hanging from the edge while their feet tilted against the wall. “Bad Boys was my favourite song when I was 14. Did you ever sit like this as a kid and pretend you could walk on the ceiling?”, he knocks his knee against Ren’s and Ren feels more blood rush to his head. “I’d always have trouble trying to imagine how I’d avoid the beams. I suppose it’s why I like rock climbing now.”

“You told me you were going to help me with my science assignment.”

Goro blinks at him, their heads still upside down, blood building in their cheeks.

“I failed science three times.”

Ren laughs so hard he can’t breathe.

The hot chocolate Goro makes for them that night is rich and sweet with bitter bursts of cocoa where the powder wasn’t stirred in all the way. He regales it as his mothers recipe, heaped spoons of sugar and milk warmed in the microwave and diluted with boiling water. It was perfect in unimportant ways, and by the time Ren reaches the final dregs of his cup, Goro palms off his own, claiming he feels far too sick to finish it off.

“It’s magic”, he jokes blandly, eyes trained on Ren’s mouth as he finishes off the second helping. “A healing potion.”

“I’ll tell you another secret”, Goro says when there’s a lapse. It’s nighttime again, but Ren hasn’t moved to the couch yet. They sit up together and almost knock foreheads—it feels like something giddy and nervous, that kind of relentless first-crush feeling that neither had found time for in brittle years of living. And _it’s okay_ , Ren has to reassure himself as Goro pulls a flat notebook from his carry bag: it’s okay because they’re just kids, and the world hasn’t ended yet. Goro offers the notebook to Ren and after only a moments hesitation does he take it—but Goro doesn’t let go.

“I watched you”, he says, fingers tight on the worn leather, “studied you. The only things in here are about you. You, Ren.”

They sleep side by side on the bed that night, even if there isn’t any room.

* * *

“Crow”, Ren says. “Crow. Be here.”

“I am”, Goro replies. “I am.”

The elevator stops.

“I’m here”, Goro says again.

They’re afraid, Ren thinks, shoulder to shoulder with his teammates. They’ve always been afraid—but they’ve never not been strong.  
  


* * *

Foresight doesn’t prepare them for a gilded, golden beast, but it does prepare them for a fight.

“This doesn’t mean you’re discarding years of work”, Makoto is saying, and the green light of Futaba passes over her mask briefly. “This doesn’t make all of that work for nothing—you’re here now, aren’t you? You can make this right.”

Ann’s fire burns bright nearby.

“You chose to change.” Ren thinks he might be yelling, but he can’t worry about that now. “If you shoot him, you’re only putting more blood on your hands. Blood you never wanted in the first place. You asked me why we decided to accept you—it’s because we’re the same.”

“We’ve all lost someone”, Yusuke’s cheek bleeds. “But death will not revive the dead!”

“If you kill him now I wouldn’t blame you”, Haru’s hair whips around her mask. “But I would not believe you if you said in your heart of hearts that you wanted another life on your hands! Death is quick, and people like him—“

“They deserve the guilt”, Zionga makes the room glow.

Goro Akechi sways like he has no spine.

“What’ll it be, Crow?”

Goro wraps his hands in Ren’s coat. He’s angry. He’s _fuming_. He shoves his gun against Ren’s chest and pulls away, stumbling off to throw up in the corner—Makoto rushes to his side as Shido’s cognition coughs, his glasses cracked and body trembling. “I’m sorry”, he mutters through blood-stained teeth. “Oh god, oh god _forgive me. Forgive me_.”

“You will never be forgiven”, Goro hisses suddenly, awake and alive and snatching Makoto’s pistol, stalking over to Shido with the fired grace of Michael himself, the shadow dropping down to his knees. “You will never experience the mercy or empathy you crave, only a guilt so _hungry_ that it will eat you alive. You will _die_ choking on your tongue as you try to recite every crime you have committed and every person you have wronged.” He jostles the gun against Shido’s sweating forehead. “I have dreamt every night”, he chokes harshly, “of putting a bullet in your skull.”

“Naomi”, Shido whispers, licking his lips quickly. “I need to see her. I have to apologise.”

“You will never go to where she is!”, Goro screams, “and her name will never touch your lips again!”

The palace rumbles beneath them, debris falling from above and a blaring alarm piercing the air. The ship is collapsing. Shido’s cognition slumps to the ground in a crying heap and Ren moves quickly to Goro, wrapping his fingers tight around his bicep.

“If you’re going to do it do it now, otherwise we’re taking the treasure and going.”

Ren is ready to run, ready to grip Goro’s hand and haul him if he has to—but he lowers the gun, his stare somewhere else completely despite being trained on every tear that leaves the shadow’s yellow eyes.

“I can only remember her laughing, tugging me along by the hand through a festival”, he says flatly. “That’s the memory I told you about. The one you said to not forget.”

Ren’s hand relaxes. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yo, we needa go!”, Ryuji yells from behind them and Goro straightens his posture, turning swiftly and passing the pistol back to Makoto as he makes his way towards a side corridor—pausing only to give the Phantom Thieves a bland look.

“I know the way out”, he reminds. “I have been coming here since I was 15, after all.”  
  


* * *

Goro waits for him behind the bars of a jail outside the Velvet Room. He asks Ren if he’d heard a piano playing, and a woman singing, but Ren shakes his head. No, I didn’t. Goro wavers, and the door shudders while he speaks:

“You were meant to defeat me, not save me. I’m meant to be dead.”

Ren’s glove creaks around one of the bars—Goro is so close. 

“So start over”, he says, and the jail shatters open.  
  


* * *

With nothing in the attic illuminated, there is a tension that refuses to be ignored. Morgana purrs loudly in his sleep, tucked somewhere by the edge of the bed away from their tangled feet. Snow grows on the window. A headache lives in Goro’s teeth. The throbbing is so loud, so constant that he wonders if Ren can hear it. He asks.

“No”, the boy replies, “but I can feel your heartbeat in your hands.” He squeezes their joined fingers once. “Too fast.”

He closes his eyes and doesn’t try to even it out. He’s truly tired for what feels like the first time in a very long year—but the world is silent outside, for now. It is scary.

“The future terrifies me”, he confesses against Ren’s pillow. “I hadn’t planned to live this long.”

Ren nudges their noses together and plants a soft kiss between his eyebrows; Goro catches the tail end of a frown.

“Think of something to do tomorrow and do it—something you’ve never done before, or something you love to do. Anything.”

“And the day after?”

“Do something else. Keep doing something else. Don’t stop.”

Goro knows it’s mutual when he thinks _I could lay here for years._ There is something nameless and safe in this dusty attic, something that feeds on the carnal need for a home and tries desperately to assimilate it. 

“Come with me”, he says.

“Any day you want”, Ren replies, kisses his nose this time, “but not tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

Goro feels that tension again. That lining in the floorboards, that face beneath the mask: he pulls away slightly, tries to read Ren in the dark.

“Ren.”

“Have you been following the news on Shido?”, he asks. He won’t look— _why won’t he look?_ “I know we’ve been telling you not to, but I guessed you already were somehow. My phone or something.” He tries to tug Goro back but Goro can’t let him, he flexes his hand.

“The police investigation is sure to lead straight to the Phantom Thieves”, he replies firmly. Ren hesitates before nodding. “Ren, tell me.”

He untangles their fingers to bring his hand to Goro’s cheek, tracing lines of worry and small acne scars, beauty spots where the sun made its mark.

“I’m sorry.”

Goro pulls away so abruptly that he almost kicks Mona off of the bed. His mind works quickly and the words trip on his teeth; so raw and open, he speaks as if he’s bleeding.

“We said we’d be honest with each other. You asked me to _trust_ you.”

“I know-”

“You knew I’d be too distracted to think about it and even now you can’t look me in the eye and tell me what we both know.”

“Goro, please...”

“Let me do it”, his hands are shaking just as bad as when Yaldabaoth had stood over them, when the death and the dread had settled into him and when Ren had said _be brave._ “You don’t deserve this, I’m the one who worked—”

He stops.

“I’m scared for you”, he whispers. _“Let me do this.”_

Ren holds both of his hands and smiles like his life isn’t over. “No.”

“You’ll be in juvenile detention.”

“I know.”

He should yell and shove him, wake up his friends and demand they stop their idiot leader from another sacrificial act. _Think about yourself for once!_ he should scream. _Stop doing things for us—let us help you!_

Ren’s arms are nice and warm and his fingers string through the knots in Goro’s hair. He can feel Ren’s heart beat.

“What am I meant to say to them? Why would you make me say it to them? Why would you do that to me?” Goro touches his throat briefly, the broken sound that escaped him didn’t feel good at all. Ren kisses the shell of his ear and it makes an obnoxious sound he knows he won’t forget.

“Makoto will come by in the morning with Sae. She’ll stay with you... Please don’t be mad at me tonight”, he adds softly, “I know it’s unfair of me to ask but don’t be mad at me. You know why I’m doing this.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”, Goro whispers. 

“I’m terrified.”

“So stay.”

Ren kisses the corner of his mouth, and then he kisses his cheek. “I’m here.”

When he wakes up, Ren is already gone.

Leblanc is uninviting downstairs. Sojiro chops vegetables silently and Futaba clutches Morgana on the stool closest to the T.V., staring down at the counter as her tears dribble onto it. _Like Ren that night,_ his mind unhelpfully supplies. Makoto looks up from one of the booths at his entrance: her eyes are red, but she smiles at him.

“Merry Christmas, Akechi.” 

He hesitates in the stairway and points a finger at her table.

“May I sit?”

She nods. Sojiro drops a spoon into soapy water.

It is as hard as he imagined it’d be, and he doesn’t even say a word. He eyes keep straying to the floral pattern of Makoto’s scarf as she quietly explains, as they cry, as they revolt and immediately plan their leader’s escape. Goro thinks it’s entirely possible—after all, they have changed every heart in Tokyo. There’s no reason they can’t do it again.

When they’re gone, Makoto stays with him. She’s nursing a chamomile tea when opens his mouth and she zeros in on the action immediately—only for him to close to again.

This hesitancy must be the hesitancy of the Goro Akechi he forgot. The one estranged with his doppelgänger, the one obsessed with moment-to-moment days and thoughts that might spiral anywhere.

“Makoto”, he settles on, watching her fingers clench around her teacup. “I would appreciate it if you could drive me somewhere.”

* * *

The groundskeeper says row 6, plot 12, like he knows what that means. The sky is a seasick green, and after a horrible few minutes of looking Makoto waves him down: the grave is under the shade of a short tree. He thinks part of it has to do with his change of heart, that this planned heist of his body and mind is the only reason he thinks some good could come of all of this. A more tired, perhaps wiser part of him knows that it isn’t just this, but the single crushing worry of Ren taking the fall for them all. He had to make the best of the situation. He couldn’t spit on such a gift. 

“Don’t worry”, Makoto said to him, and did an odd thing then. She pulled her hand out from her coat pocket and squeezed his hand tight. 

Tomorrow, he will ask the owner of Leblanc if he’s looking for a part-timer.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!
> 
> — tnevmucric.carrd.co


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